dreamweaver
by Hinotorihime
Summary: My loom is memories, and my shuttle is words. A collection of poetry.
1. latvia: dreamweaver

**{dreamweaver}**

I'm weaving dreams out of matchsticks  
And tufts of longing, spun strong into silver chains

And hangman's knots.

My loom is memories  
And my shuttle is words  
(And snow like angels' feathers drifts onto the blank pages  
Leaves tiny teardrop footprints across the brilliance of my fantasies)

My sister sang lullabyes to honeybees at night  
My brother poured milk out for the serpents he kissed  
And now I hang my wishes from the linden trees and count  
each  
heart  
beat  
fluttering in my stomach running fox-and-rabbit parallel

It's cold here.  
My fingers are clumsy from the numbness.

You would laugh at me, people? I've gone through fire with bare feet  
And steel trembles, you know, when it's being quenched  
(Steam spreads its hood upward and when it does it _burns_  
it hisses it strikes  
with more venom than the sword will ever have—)

Outside my window, the world keeps turning.


	2. lithuania: untitled (wib 11)

crucifixion kills by suffocating. your hands  
curl cold around the knives  
pinned to the wall in glass cases  
and an illegible display card  
written in blood.  
lungs full of words, thick slick and fluid  
they rise in your throat and burn your mouth and you choke  
the bile back  
one more time onemore onemoretime  
(and your arms outstretched to the sky  
cannot support the earth's weight any longer)  
she twisted your kindness into a crown  
and set it on your head.


	3. poland: with one hand i save

**{and with one hand i save and the other i destroy}**

raise my face to the breeze and swallow fire as it pours from the sun  
past my chapped-bloody lips  
you can't hold me down forever

just try it, darling  
my fingers will wrap around the ivory keys of your throat  
and caress you into a nocturne:  
tenuto decrescendo—al fine.


	4. ruslith: untitled

(are you strong enough now?)

indigo. sky soft and velvet, wide eyes you  
touch me  
i shiver in the cold  
wrap my arms around you  
murmur all the words you always told me  
to say.  
harsh sunset long gone it stabbed our vision screamed brass alarms but now  
it's dark, we're safe  
(you're iron to protect us, red-brown rusting in the snowdrifts)  
come on, hold each other close  
and we'll share kisses under the blanketing shadows  
just like you always promised. i've no real heart to give you  
but spasming under my fingertips yours is big enough for the both of us (why do you need such a big heart, my boreal wind, my iron maiden)  
no moon in sight.

hey what's the matter i thought you wanted me?

(bruised sky wide eyes you push against my chest)

silence.


	5. lietpol: eggshells

**{an entire house, carpeted with eggshells}**

I made a steel sword out of selfishness  
trying to save myself from the oblivion of domesticity  
and you, whose only crime was loving me, are kneeling bleeding and impaled against your hill of crosses  
 _don't come crawling back_  
 _I don't want you anymore_

there's something inside every dog that was a wolf once.

trying to pick up the pieces of our lives but they're just cutting our hands  
and our mouths, scars like loki's in careless rows  
(sew my mouth shut and maybe I won't be able to hurt you)  
 _don't come crawling back to me_  
 _I'm not worth your forgiveness_


	6. lietpol: lux perpetua

**{lux perpetua}**

they brought me to see you, you know, and you were lying more peaceful than i've ever seen you  
hair sprawled out all gold flames and i thought _brynhild_ but that's not my myth is it

your bones unfolded higher than too-blue sky and  
curved graceful into bleach-white trellises  
poppies and roses and amaryllis spilling out soft and limp

(i heard once anemones are the piled lacy guts of a goddess's lover  
but that's not my myth either)

peace doesn't suit you, you know.


	7. lithuania, poland, russia: happiness

**{j'ai reconnu le bonheur au bruit qu'il a fait en partant}**

i

 _pirmas_. little girl in a snowfield snatched up on your horse

leaves a sigil of footprints behind you (i will be protected

i will be loved) becomes a woman at your hearthside

you learn each other's secret hearts

so well too well maybe that's why it'll hurt so much one day

 _antras_. glittery and glaring but you worshipped him once

sun you can't bear to look at (he tells you about icarus

foolish intoxicated boy wings a fragile construct)

you never knew him at all did you

 _trečias_. cold heavy weights in your stomach they keep you on your feet

even though you don't need them (you've always been a good dancer)

he hands you his heart and expects you to take care of it

ii

 _pierwszy_. dark hair falling softly to the floor

he should be grateful damn it this is his soul at stake here

(your skin marble-white glimmering

sunlight on a tombface) oh and i could sharpen my teeth on your pride

 _drugi_. they take you like a woman break you like a horse but

knife in your bodice you don't need saving

he runs his fingers over the scars (mouth blue-green with pity

words acid on your skin) you shudder with cast-iron eyes

 _trzeci_. no time for not breathing let numbers fall through fingers

let cockpit switches slide smooth under skin

let anger surge up inside you burn out the frozen fear (let him touch you

halting stiff it's not what either of you really want)

iii

 _первый_. guide her nails across his chest watch his proud mouth falter

when he fell you were there cold ocean

ready to catch him cradle him in white-cap currents

protect him from sunlight and hot air

 _второй_. (there is no second. he is the only one you will ever love.)

 _третий_. slender fingers curl tight around your heart

lemon-juice bitterness drips sticky into the snow

(third time loving him and nothing

ever

 _changes._ )


	8. lietbela: kyrie eleison

**{κύριε ελέησον}**

sometimes at night i hear you whispering  
sobs bone-dry in your throat like cold air on an open sore  
they don't reach farther than your chapped lip-edges (you taught me to be prouder than that)  
(but the trembling that shakes the bed isn't all from winter drafts)

are you praying, far-seer? who is your muttered begging going to reach?  
your husband's God is dead. the spirits you abandoned for Him,  
do they forgive more easily than you? or perhaps it's Winter Himself  
you're pleading with, in this show of useless faith

–don't look at me like that. did your _faith_ ever make the crops grow or the snow stop  
or keep you master in your own house?

(but you're not looking at me  
my lips are moving no louder than yours because your brother is curled against your back and i don't know where mine is  
just that he's not here  
and the night is dripping frozen off the dying moon)

you're asleep  
lashes flickering  
pulse rough and fast  
i put my hand out and touch your hair like a swallowed breath

 _you used to be so_ _ **strong**_


End file.
